A/N: I don't know where this dark beast came from. The original idea was for Roxas to be a bounty hunter, and Axel the bounty, and it was supposed to end in a hot passion. Well, anyway, a different kind of hot passion. Warnings for blood and violence and death.
Red Marks
Axel watched the blond enter the hotel from across the street. The redhead leaned in the darkened door of a closed shop, just outside of the warm glow of the streetlights, hands tucked into the pockets of a black leather jacket. When the blond didn't reemerge, he straightened and strode away, long legs carrying him without effort.
o - o - o
Roxas had been trailing the arsonist for weeks now.
The bounty had been announced even before that, but he hadn't been interested at first. Still, nobody had managed to find them. Or, if they had, they hadn't returned to collect the fee. The short man didn't bother to keep tabs on many others in his line of business. Just enough to stay out of unwanted trouble. But there was still a price, and the little dossier of information on the person grew along with that price.
The arsonist was becoming the kind of trouble that Roxas did want. It was a challenge, to find the person who'd evaded capture so far. The burnt bodies left in the ashes were a testament to the person's ruthlessness, the kind of criminal he'd sharpened his claws to hunt. The kind of thrill he loved to savor.
The arsonist was tall and slender, but it was difficult to be certain of much else. The grainy photos that he'd been given featured a hooded figure, all in black. Just that unusual, lanky height to distinguish them. The embers they left scattered across at least three states, nearly all of them with casualties. The person got a kick out of it, Roxas figured, and he could relate. He wasn't exactly an upstanding citizen, himself. The jobs he took may have kept him under the radar, but that didn't make them any less legal, the killing any less brutal, any less fun.
The crimson of blood was his favorite color.
There wasn't much of a pattern to the crimes, at least, not when he first started following the trail. Sometimes there would be fires within a day of each other, other times weeks. It was only a coincidence that he was in the city when the arsonist hit again, a suburban residence reduced to a blackened husk by the time Roxas arrived, creeping along the edges of the police line. There were no casualties, that time. Roxas had even doubted that it had anything to do with his mark, until he saw another person prowling around the police perimeter.
Long and lean and clad in all black, face shadowed under the hood. A lock of hair trailing out from the recesses of the self-contained darkness, catching the strobing emergency lights. It looked…red. But it was all red, with the police cruiser still casting its blinding light on the scene. Sharp red and blue angled jaw, a glimmer of eyes as a thin mouth turned into a smirk when the other noticed Roxas' gaze.
After that, the blazes took on a pattern. Roxas noticed roman numerals tagged in spray paint on buildings opposite a fire, the "VIII" done in black or white, a nearby town's name, a string of Arabic numbers. It blended into the usual street art, but it was there again and again, the same, spindly scrawl. The blond checked over the notes for the mark, and no, there hadn't been anything like it before. Not until Roxas had been seen.
It was likely the mark thought he was a fan. Or maybe they knew how he earned his living. It didn't make a difference to the blond. All the better if the target was playing the same game he was.
When one of the fires eventually consumed an abandoned warehouse, the blond grinned, blue eyes turning to ice. It was one of his own kill sites, and there, on a dumpster in the alley, that haphazard scrawl, in red now: "The name's Axel." There was no string of numbers, nothing else to hint at Axel's next move, so Roxas waited.
He didn't have to wait long, and the next blaze made him laugh, a dark sound bubbling out of his mouth. It was just a tool shed, but it was another deliberate torching of Roxas' past. In red again, "Are you having fun?"
A string of consecutive days, burnt buildings and dark alleys, more often than not places Roxas had been before, executing his marks. "Good form on that one." A bleeding smiley face. "We should have dinner." "You know, before we kill each other." Occasionally, he would see the tall person disappearing around a shadowed corner, gone when he moved to follow.
It was the kind of deadly flirt that Roxas had never experienced before, and it made his blood thrill in his veins.
o - o - o
He woke to find the tall person folded into the hotel room's armchair, watching him in the dark. His hand went for the gun under his pillow, reflexes already pointing it at the mark that had become his predator.
A baritone voice tutted him, stopping his trigger finger. "Come on Roxy, is that how you greet your lover?" A chuckle.
In the low light, Roxas could see a wild mane of hair that had before only ever been hidden under a hood. The face all angular and catlike, with slitted green eyes that only complemented the look. Two dark lines, like teardrops, tattooed underneath the eyes in sharp punctuation.
"Lover?" The blond kept his aim steady, finger still a hair above the trigger, intonation flat.
The man clicked on the lamp, forcing Roxas to squint to keep his eyes on him. "Aren't we, though? Lovers? I don't do these things for people I don't care for." A slow smile tugged at the other man's lips as blue eyes adjusted to the light and took in the cascade of crimson spikes, red hair dripping down narrow shoulders. "We've been playing this game for a while, yeah?"
"Are you ready to end it?" The blue eyes swept the desk next to the redhead, a pack of cigarettes there, lighter in slender hands, and a small black bag at the other's feet, calculating. The gun was in his hand, still steady, but not for much longer. He had a knife strapped to his ankle, more weapons in the drawer in the nightstand next to him.
"Nah. Next time, maybe. I wanted to meet you, first." He flicked the lighter absently, green eyes dancing as he watched the little flame. The gaze shifted to look at Roxas. "Why d'ya do it?"
Roxas lowered his pistol to his lap, still pointed in Axel's direction, finger along the barrel. They understood each other, so that even with the "it" hanging anonymously at the end of the question, he knew exactly what Axel was asking. Softly, "Why do you?"
His eyes glittered. "I love the spectacle of it. A tableau of heat and light and color, the smell of scorching, the symphony of screams. The fire dances and creates and destroys." He drew a stuttering breath, eyelids drooping for a moment. A silence hung in the air as Roxas nodded. Then green eyes flicked up and focused on the blond. "Now you show me yours."
The blond smirked at the innuendo. Gesturing at Axel with his weapon, he said, "I love the color of blood. Your hair is almost there. The hunt, the danger, the satisfaction when I watch the light go out in their eyes." He licked his lips. "This kind of turnabout makes it all the better, when I regain the upper hand."
Axel laughed. "Do you think you will?"
Roxas studied the redhead, the lithe limbs loose, relaxed, except for the compulsive flick of the lighter. The brilliant red of his hair, the color he wanted to watch slip between his fingers. The sharp green eyes, with their burning intelligence. Would he be able to best this one? He shrugged. "Maybe. I don't care. You know how it goes."
"'It's not the kill; it's the thrill of the chase,'" Axel leered.
They sat in silence for a while, each taking the measure of the other across the room. It was the stare of two predators, cold, each imagining the death of the other.
At last, Axel stood, a fluid movement like spilling out of the chair, catching up his small black bag, a cigarette already on its way to his mouth. Roxas' pistol raised again in an active aim, but the redhead only acknowledged him with raised eyebrows as he lit the cigarette. "Not this time, blondie." He winked. "You'll see me coming. It'll be fair." He waved as he opened the door; Roxas admired how cleanly he'd entered, the deadbolt's chain neatly clipped.
"Lock the door on your way out!" he called, only to receive an answering laugh as the door closed. Because of course, a lock was only a deterrent. Roxas didn't keep a gun under his pillow for nothing, and the familiar metal shape in his hand—safety on again—lulled him back to sleep.
o - o - o
Axel sat on the precarious edge along the face of the clock tower, blowing the smoke of nicotine into the air. This high up, the wind snatched it up and carried it away. From here, he could see his flames licking the flophouse, hear the roar and crackle that devoured the structure. If there were screams, they were swallowed by the noise. He'd been sloppy, this time: the fire wouldn't gut the building the way he liked, not before the firefighters arrived. It was okay, though. He still had the little mercenary's attention: he'd caught him sifting through the ashes of his last bonfire.
He was sharp, that one, caught onto the details that others had missed. Not so sharp that Axel hadn't noticed him, but sharp enough that the redhead appreciated him. Didn't find creative ways to dispatch him. Not yet. He wanted a level playing field.
o - o - o
Roxas was an opportunist. He took easy jobs as he played his game with Axel, the man with hair almost—but not quite—the color of blood. He had no delusions about who was hunting who, by this point. His mark teased him with little clues, and once he returned to his sleazy motel to find a bounty, gagged and bound, in his bathroom, angry red burns littering her arms as she glared at him, all defiance and challenge. Roxas watched the blood spatter next to the burns, lips curling into his cold smile.
He knew that the fee for that one was the last he would collect. It was the token of love before the proposal. They understood each other, he and Axel.
Roxas no longer wore synthetic materials. He left flammables locked up in the trunk of his black sedan. He considered sleeping in the bathroom, curled at the bottom of the tub, but dismissed the thought in favor of having multiple exits. He still kept the gun under his pillow, knives within reach. He smelled the proverbial smoke, knew the pyro Axel was coming, just as he'd promised.
The anticipation spread with a flutter of excitement in his belly.
o - o - o
Roxas tracked the tall man to a warehouse on the edge of a shipping yard.
They stared each other down in an open space on the floor, both in black. Axel wore his hair loose, a wild mess of red spikes adding more sharp edges to his already angular frame. Roxas' hair was a haphazard sweep of blond, giving him a boyish look that didn't match his icy blue eyes. The taller man held two strange, sharp circular weapons, one in each gloved hand, a couple portable blowtorches hanging from his belt. The shorter, two wicked blades that ended in blocky barbs, so that they resembled skeleton keys. There were guns, too, but this had never been the succinct explosion of gunpowder. It would be a slow burn, a dance of dripping blood.
There was already a fire kindling somewhere, making the air hazy with smoke, the crackle a low buzz of white noise. "Hey gorgeous," Axel greeted, voice smooth.
Roxas cocked his head at him. "Did you get tired of the foreplay?"
The responding grin was a slash of white, even teeth. "More like, I got bored of everything else." He adjusted his grip on the weapons. "Thought this might be a bit more fun." His pose was relaxed, expectant.
The blond gripped his blades tighter, centered himself, his mouth a thin line. "I won't disappoint you."
Axel danced forward, a quick lunge at his opponent, and laughed when the blow was blocked. "I know you won't."
It began as their game had: slow, each testing the other's movements, neither really pushing at first. Roxas landed the first blow, a glancing one that split Axel's cheek and narrowed the green eyes. Blue eyes followed the drip of blood with a smile, just a shade darker than the bristle of red hair. The lanky man answered in kind, a bludgeon that caught the blond's shoulder, and they began fighting in earnest.
They were both already bruised and bleeding when the redhead triggered something on his weapon, so that a jet of fire shot from one of the vicious spokes, catching Roxas by surprise. The flame caught him along his ribs and he roared, momentarily blinded by the pain. Axel pressed the advantage, knocking one of the keyblades from his hands.
"That's the sound I wanted to hear," the tall man purred.
Roxas wiped at sweat and blood trickling down his face with the free hand, before re-arming with a knife, leaving the keyblade where it had crashed to the floor. His eyes were beginning to sting from the smoke, his clothes sticking to him in the heat from the fire gnawing their surroundings. The pain spurred him forward, the shorter man ducking below Axel's considerable height to bury the little blade into soft flesh.
They locked eyes for a breath as Roxas skittered back, both blue and green eyes narrowed. The blond's voice came out low and gritty as he bit out, "Bleed for me."
The redhead stood back, eyes and arms wide, inviting. "Gladly!"
They understood each other. Maybe, in another life, they wouldn't tear each other apart, but this was the life they had. It would never have amounted to much, anyway.
Roxas' skin was already a collection of painful, red burns, hot sweat and blood doing nothing to sooth him, by the time the warehouse reached a roaring inferno. He knelt, only just supported by the blade he leaned on. Axel's hair swayed in the hot breath of fire, even as sweat plastered half of it to his skin. He was down to one of his circular weapons, and he was bent, gasping, as he eyed his opponent. He was a canvas of weeping cuts that the shorter man eyed hungrily.
"Roxas," he hissed, just the name, nothing else.
"Axel," the blond acknowledged. They were both fading, choking on the thickening smoke, failing from blood lost in small and large wounds alike.
"Shall we end it?"
Roxas nodded. "Kill me before your fucking fire does."
Axel laughed, a sound that turned into a cough. "Together, then." The redhead dropped the second chakram with a clatter and produced a small knife instead, for a shorter range. Roxas tossed his last blade so that it clanged with the circle of metal on the ground, and followed suit.
They met with a grunt, a deadly embrace that sent them to the floor with their discarded weapons.
As their life gushed out of them, Roxas brought a seared hand up tangle into Axel's red locks. "You look beautiful in red," he breathed.
Axel's laughter caught in his throat, his answer a raspy, "And you bathed in firelight."
They were close, enough to watch their life as it drained from their eyes, the blood pooling beneath them, until neither of them saw anything. Neither of them felt the flames consume them.
Only the charred, warped metal of their weapons survived the chaos of their battlefield. And on a brick wall across the street, marked in a spindly red tag: "Fuck love, give me fire."
End note: That last line, "Fuck love, give me fire" is borrowed from Blaqk Audio's song, "Cities of Night." This might have inspired me, just a little.